Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers & Cultivating Cultural Competency with the Diverse Deaf, Deaf-Blind and Hard of Hearing Community

8th Annual Conference of the New Jersey Statewide Network for Cultural Competence (NJSNCC) was held on April 26 and 27, 2021. The conference was originally scheduled as an in-person event. However, due to the pandemic, and for health safety purposes, the conference was held virtually, the first of its kind for the Network.

Dr. Robert Like, NJSNCC Chair, opened the conference, welcomed the attendees, and reviewed the objectives and agenda for the 2-day virtual conference.

Following Dr. Like, Ms. Alyssa Buchholz, Lead Deaf Mentor of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program of the SPAN Parent Advocacy Network, shared a personal story and perspective, and discussed the importance of recognizing the diversity that exists within DDBDDDHHLD (Deaf, Deaf Blind, Deaf Disabled, Hard of Hearing, Late Disabled) communities.

Approved ASL interpreters were provided for each of the sessions for adequate communication access.  SPAN also arranged for captioning of the videos for the conference.

The 2-day conference brought together professionals, consumers and advocates from the deaf and hearing communities in a collective dialogue to share lived experiences, information and resources as part of the National Minority Health Month.

• The keynote speaker for the first day, April 26, was Elizabeth Hill, BA/MSW, Director, Division of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, New Jersey Department of Human Services, who spoke on the topic of “Addressing Health Disparities for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community through Cultural Competence.” Following her talk, there was a panel discussion on “Professional Stories and Perspectives” moderated by Nancy Schneider, Audiologist of the NJ Department of Health. The panel consisted of professionals involved in providing services to the DDBDDHHLD community.  Panelists were asked to respond to several questions that focused on their professional experiences and perspectives on providing services to this particular community, barriers and challenges, and best practices and resources for helping professionals to work effectively and efficiently in various settings with the DDBDDHHLD population.
• The keynote speaker for the second day, April 27, was Noah Buchholz, PhD Student in Religion & Society at Princeton Theological Seminary, who spoke on the topic of “Why Do We Need Deaf Studies? Engaging with Deaf Studies in Various Fields.”  Following his presentation, the afternoon panel was focused on consumer/advocacy stories and perspectives and was comprised of families who told their side of their experiences as consumers and advocates of services as DDBDHHLD recipients. Diana Autin, Executive Director of SPAN’s Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, moderated the panel.

The conference offered special virtual breakout groups and recorded sessions (see below for information on how to access these videos).

• On-demand presentation, Deaf Education Guidance provided by Wendy Eufemia from the NJ Department of Education.
• Live discussion on D/HH Adult to Family Support Programs in New Jersey provided by Pam Aasen, Alyssa Buchholz, Carrie Pogue and Deaf Mentors.
• Live break-out presentation on NJ CAP Relay Conference Captioning.

There were 94 attendees for both days of the conference.

The NJ Department of Health provided major grant funding towards this event. Our major sponsors included Horizon NJ Health, WellCare Health Plans, Inc., and the ASL Interpreter Referral Services, Inc.

The positive response to the event owes much to the partnership with the NJ Division of the Deaf & Hard of Hearing, the Division of Children & Families, NJ Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, The Boggs Center/Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and SPAN Parent Advocacy Network, the organization that coordinated the conference logistics.

CRC (Rehabilitation Counseling) continuing education credits were offered to employees of the NJ Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services seeking credits.

A special thank you goes out to our major funders, sponsors, exhibitors, expert presenters, the conference logistics team of the NJSNCC, and especially, the families who shared their stories, and to all those who made this conference a huge success.

To access recordings of the welcome address, keynote speeches and panel discussions, please click on this link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YSvbdgzVbybp8HyCoymjc8P633cdZK15

The recordings include closed captioning and ASL interpretation for each session.